Here, there, everywhere.

I have been a bad blogger lately.  I mean well, I just do not sit down and put fingers to the keyboard.  I probably should break this down into different posts, but I like making a long one! :)

There has been a lot going on over in our neck of the woods.  February we celebrated Emma and Brian’s birthdays.  This year everyone came to us to celebrate.  It was nice having Mom fix lunch and everything else for us.  DeAnne did another amazing job with Brian’s cake.  For those who have not seen it yet; here is his iPod cake. Although his is silver, DeAnne figured a silver/gray cake would not be very appealing to eat.  She had all the details of the iPod included.  I’m not a big fan of fondant, but I do like DeAnne’s.  She makes her from scratch with marshmallow cream and powdered sugar. How can you go wrong with that?  The ear buds were very neat in that she had the shape and everything down to a T.  I still do not fully understand why she does not do these for people.  She could make a killing off them! 

For Emma this year, we all chipped in to get her a Nintendo DS.  She was very excited when she opened her gift, but she is her daddy’s daughter, she does not show excitement much.  Daniel never shows excited about anything.  Emma was grinning from ear to ear when she opened her gift; which I took as a good sign she was excited.

For Valentine’s we stayed home.  This is the first year since we have been dating we did not go to Clarksdale.  While I love going, we have saturated everything there is to do there.  Instead we had a quite evening at home.  Brian picked up my favorite pizza from Pizza Factory and we at off the wedding china and drank champagne out of the crystal.   It was quite fun eating pizza and staying in.  I love my china and really should get in the habit of using it more.  One thing my mother taught me (even thought she doesn’t practice it much) is to actually use your china.  Why wait for a “special” occasion to use it?  For dessert, Brian bought me petit fours as part of my Valentine’s gift.  This is actually all I asked for. I LOVE petit fours!  It’s a good thing they are such a pain to make otherwise I would be making them all the time!

The week after Valentine’s we had a beer tasting of the beer Brian brewed.  For Christmas, I got him a beer brewing kit.  Now, it was no where near involved as Michael’s (see Casey’s blog for his process and her 100th post!), but he enjoyed it.  I did not think to take pictures of the process, but I do have one of all the bottles (we went ghetto and used water bottles) before we starting drinking them.  Do not fear!  We use pints to drink out of.  We were nuts to not taste the beer before we let anyone, but we did it.  I was so scared of what the beer would taste like and that it might be flat. Let me be the first to say I was pleasantly surprised! As you can see it’s a light amber brew.  I believe it was called a pale ale, but it’s a little more amber than most pale ales.  It had a nice citrus taste to it.  We did discover that home brews do tend to have a higher alcohol content.  For some reason that never crossed my mind!

I completely forgot to get a picture of Brian with a pint of it, but I do have Meredith enjoying a glass of it!  

By the end of the afternoon, all the beers were gone!  I do believe others thought it was drinkable too.  I cannot wait for him to try his hand at a different brew.  I would love for him to get the hops and try it all from scratch at some point!

 

I have not been sewing much this month; seems like too much as been going on for me to sit down for a couple of hours to sew.  I did though finish my lunch bag.  Please do not judge me or look closely at it.  This was my first time making anything like this so it does have PLENTY of mistakes.  I am looking forward to making a few more.  Even with all the mistakes it turned out pretty well.  I just need to pick up some clothes pins to use to close it. 

I have some of oilcloth left over so I plan make a few of those pocket bibs.  I’m looking forward to seeing how they turn out.  I really like using the oilcloth.  There are so many things that can be made with the oilcloth.  I have seen a few placemats that might be fun to whip up.  Speaking of household items, I picked up a few new pattern books the weekend my family was in town.  One is full of retro aprons (I have become in love with aprons) and then one is different types of linens; napkins, placemats, shopping bags, dishtowels, etc. 

A week from tomorrow we are heading on vacation for one glorious week! Saturday through Wednesday we will be in Pigeon Forges with my family.  I have never been to the mountains; so I am looking forward to a little mountain getaway.  It will be so nice to get away from everything and just be enjoying the scenery.  Wednesday thought Saturday Brian and I will be in Asheville.  We decided to find something near Pigeon Forges for us to finish out the week.  Neither one of us have been to Asheville plus it is only an hour and half from Pigeon Forges.  We plan to tour the Biltmore and winery, take in a Brew Cruise, possible ghost tour, St. Patrick’s day fun, and much more!  I’m looking forward to a relaxing week away from everything. 

I am getting the itch to pick up a cross-stitching project.  Not sure what I want to do, but I do have few patterns to choose from.  Maybe next time I’m in Alabama, I’ll pick up some fabric and start one.  Right now at night, I’m working on another baby blanket.  I just started a random one to have something to do while watching TV (I’m the type who has to have something to do while watching TV.  I very rarely just sit and watch TV; I feel like I’m wasting time if I do not have something to do.).  Turns out this one will be for our good friends Tyler and Whitney!  They just found out they are having a boy; I knew I decided to do a blue one for a reason. :)

Oh!  For those who haven’t heard (and this shows you how bad of a blogger I have been) I got a promotion last month!  I’m uber excited about it and have been going none stop at work.  I am still in the same group, reports, I am just now the manager. Hopefully soon, I will find a new hire to replace me.  I am in need of more help.